Fast Friends

by Susan Dunlap

  An eighteen-wheeler lumbered into the intersection making a left. Ellen cut a hard right in front of it. The bags banged forward; Liza hit the windshield.

  “Yeow! Ellen, what are you doing? You afraid the cops won’t find us fast enough?”

  “Hang on, you’ll see.” Ellen hit the gas and the truck rattled down the road. “I cannot let us dawdle behind a truck. We cannot get caught. We owe it to Harry and to Wes. Hell, we owe it to us.”

  “Felton.” Liza’s voice was so soft she almost missed the word. But she was sure Liza had said only that one word, Felton. Not Jay.

  The street was dark, and if there were signs, they were too small, too high, or maybe too old and drab to be deciphered, but Ellen recognized the road she had come in on and hung a left. It was the same road, but she was driving in the opposite direction, not speeding in panic to likely death, but doing 35 in a 35 zone, heading into the future. In a mile she spotted the row of tail lights, and this time as she pulled in behind the last RV, she felt her shoulders relax and her jaw unclench.

  They sat silent, Liza not even asking her plan. An RV moved in behind, shielding them. The line inched forward. They should be making plans, she knew that, but there was time, and the shared silence was too comforting to break.

  Liza must have realized it too. She shifted the bag between them, pulled her knees to her chest, and sighed.

  The RV in front moved forward. Ellen let out the clutch and the truck jolted ahead, as if tossing them into the future. “So, Liza,” she said, “there’s money in those bags, right? Take a peek, huh? Chances are there’s a knife in the glove compartment.”

  “I’d expect no less of one of Malloy’s trusted men. Ah ha! Right you are. He’s got a knife, a flashlight, and hey, a Hershey’s bar.” She broke the bar and handed Ellen half. “God, I am so starved,” she said through a mouth of chocolate. “I thought I’d never eat again, and now I’m ready to stop at every fast-food joint between here and Portland. If it were up to me there’d be no deep fry left in the entire Pacific Northwest. But okay, onto the money. Should be three million. That’s three million, each.”

  “Three million dollars? I can’t believe it. I know we said we’d take it. And we did take it. But I still can’t believe it. Three million dollars. What are you going to do with yours?”

  “Buy food. No, seriously, it’s hard to imagine that much money could be in these bags. But—” she slit the side of the duffle and pulled out a bill—“this is a hundred dollar bill.”

  “A hundred dollar bill! Let me see!” She held it near the windshield, but the intermittent glow from the streetlights flashed and was gone before she could make out the figure on the bill. No matter. Plenty of time to get to know Mr. Hamilton or Mr. Grant. “So after you eat, Liza, then what are you going to do with the rest of your life?”

  Liza wrapped her arms around her knees. It was a minute before she said, “The rest of my life. God, what a gift.” Her voice was thoughtful, but there was still an undercurrent of wildness. “You know I’ve never thought beyond tomorrow, I guess because the future just held fear—you know, like with Felton—what will I do when I’m not a cute little piglet anymore? When I’m just good for bacon—or whatever other use they have for over the hill pigs and women? My whole life has been directed by men: my father, Jay and even Bentec. I’ve been so busy pleasing them, or outrunning them, or keeping their protection that all I’ve done is maintain a good facade.”

  The RV in front turned left. Ellen eased her foot off the brake and let the truck roll a couple yards and into the turn. When she stopped it again, Liza was facing her.

  “But that’s over. The rules are different now, Ellen. They’re my rules.” Liza shoved the suitcase to make more room for herself. “Here’s what I’m going to do. As soon as we get into the campground I’m going to stride over to the bulletin board and see what’s for sale. Then I’m going to buy me a trailer, one with the engine in it. I’m going to drive it into the country and park where I can’t see anyone. There’ll be no one’s reaction for me to check to see how I’m doing or who I should be. Just me. Then I’m just going to sit on my steps till I know who I am.” She let a moment pass and added, “After that I’ll decide on the rest of the rules.”

  Ellen’s throat clutched. She swallowed hard and just at the moment she thought she had herself under control she blurted out, “What about me?” She felt like a fool.

  Liza reached over and rubbed her shoulder. “I know, it’s so much harder for you. I don’t have anyone to lose now, but you, with Wes…God, I am so so sorry, Ellen. Sorrier than I can ever say.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know. But, look, three million dollars can take you anywhere. It can buy you a passport, a summer in London, a flat overlooking the Seine, a houseboat on the Nile. Anything.”

  “That’s not what I meant, dammit. You want to buy a trailer and head into the woods alone. Well, what about me? I steal you an airplane, and a bicycle, and stop a whole goddamn freight train for you. And I’m not part of your plans at all?”

  Liza stared. She let out a laugh. She grabbed Ellen’s head with both hands and planted a kiss. Then she laughed again. “Wow! I can’t believe it. You really want to stay together? I knew things had changed, but, still, I figured you’d light out of here as fast as possible and you’d never want to see me again. I, well, I didn’t want to presume.”

  “Presume.” The kiosk was two cars ahead. She reached in her pocket for cash.

  “Allow me.” Liza pulled a few more bills through the hole in the satchel. “A hundred okay?”

  Ellen took the money and let the subject drop. She needed to pull herself together, but so much had changed she didn’t know how to pull or where to pull it.

  The RV ahead rattled off, leaving a clear view of the campground with its irregular lines of trailers, trucks, campers, vans and vehicles that defied description. Lots of whites, but sunflower yellows, a sky print with clouds a la Georgia O’Keeffe, a couple lavenders, one striped, and a red tartan print that looked like a kilt on wheels. Ellen rolled the truck forward to the entry window.

  “Reservation number?” The woman wore a billed cap, a plain blue sweatshirt, and a no-nonsense expression.

  “Four-oh-eight.” Beside her she could hear Liza’s muffled gasp.

  “Four-oh-eight’s already been taken, are you sure—”

  “Hey, we’ve driven twelve hours straight. If you double booked that’s not my problem. Four-oh-eight’s what they told me.”

  The woman jerked back as if slapped.

  Liza gave a small windy whistle of approval.

  Ellen softened her voice. “Listen, I don’t care where you settle us. I just want to park and get out, and find the bathroom, you know?”

  “I hear you on that, sister. Head over to the left. Park at the end for now. Someone won’t show and you can move to a better slot later if you want.”

  “Thanks.” She held out the bill and waited for change.

  “Hey, El,” Liza whispered, “whatever happened to the cautious daughter of the creamed-corn woman? You really are a natural at this.”

  Ellen pocketed the change. Being a natural, it didn’t horrify her anymore. She let a smile creep across her face and headed the truck beneath the welcome sign, hung a left, then a right, rumbled down the irregular lane between vehicles.

  Halfway down the aisle, Liza yelled, “Stop. This must be the bulletin board area.” She wriggled her legs over the bags and reached for the door. “I’ll go see if there’s a for sale list. Maybe I can get one tonight so we don’t have to be quite so together in the back of this truck.”

  Beside the roadway five or six women in jeans were laughing. The sound seemed so foreign, so oddly normal. Ellen leaned back. She was way too tired to think. She just watched Liza walk across the parking lot, her hair pulled back tight, the curls yanked straight on her scalp, and bushing out below the rubber band. Wes’s brown wool sweater hung loose on her and halfway to
her knees. But it was her walk that marked the difference in her: heavy, solid, despite the dirt-coated tennis shoes that looked so flimsy here. She looked, Ellen realized, like she belonged.

  When the rattle of the door woke her she had no idea how long Liza had been gone.

  Liza climbed in, grinning like a kid with a present.

  “You bought a van?”

  “Not yet. I got sidetracked by all those women and the excitement. It was like a reunion, a real reunion of real friends. I mean, Ellen, what a high. Women calling out to each other, hugging, shifting to make room for more friends. A dozen conversations going at once. You want to know what they’re talking about?”

  “All of them?”

  “They’re talking, Ellen, laughing about a story on the news. Seems, my friend—” she grabbed both of Ellen’s hands—“that there’s this guy in Eugene kicking up a fuss, threatening to sue the pants off the cops and the F.B.I. because they burned down his house. Fire devoured everything including his spare leg. The locals are blaming it all on a rogue cop from L.A.” She squeezed Ellen’s hands. “What do you think? Think Wes may not need our millions?”

  Liza started shaking her.

  Ellen felt like her head was going to burst. She pushed Liza off. “Omigod, he wasn’t in the fire? Really? Can that be true? Wes is alive? How could he not…” She was grinning so wide she could barely speak. “Felton, your wonderful wonderful pig. Wes said he’d make sure Felton was safe. He must have taken him to those friends with the three little girls before his house got torched. Wonderful pig.”

  Sixty-Six

  RAIN BEGAN AROUND NOON Tuesday. It rained all day and into the night. Wednesday morning the rain stopped just as the lines of RVs headed out past the gate, endless lines of women honking, waving, calling goodbye to old and new friends. Women headed south to San Diego, north to Canada, east to Ohio, to North Carolina, to Brooksville, Maine. They had their water bottles, their maps, their apples and trail mix. Some had the news on the radio, some were singing along with tapes they’d bought at the gathering. They drove for the first few miles like an unstoppable train, bumper to bumper, silver airstream to handmade wooden tent over pick-up bed. Police officers—women—grinned and waved them through intersections and they tooted their horns. When they turned onto the freeway and the gathering of women began to dissipate like incense in a breeze they felt the clutch of sadness, but also the thrill. They were travelling women and the road rolled out before them.

  Liza grinned at Ellen, pulled her cap down and headed east into the sun.

  A Biography of Susan Dunlap

  Susan Dunlap (b. 1943) is the author of more than twenty mystery novels and a founding member of Sisters in Crime, an organization that promotes women in the field of crime writing.

  Born in New York City, Dunlap entered Bucknell University as a math major, but quickly switched to English. After earning a master’s degree in education from the University of North Carolina, she taught junior high before becoming a social worker. Her jobs took her all over the country, from Baltimore to New York and finally to Northern California, where many of her novels take place.

  One night, while reading an Agatha Christie novel, Dunlap told her husband that she thought she could write mysteries. When he asked her to prove it, she accepted the challenge. Dunlap wrote in her spare time, completing six manuscripts before selling her first book, Karma (1981), which began a ten-book series about brash Berkeley cop Jill Smith.

  After selling her second novel, Dunlap quit her job to write fulltime. While penning the Jill Smith mysteries, she also wrote three novels about utility-meter-reading amateur sleuth Vejay Haskell. In 1989, she published Pious Deception, the first in a series starring former medical examiner Kiernan O’Shaughnessy. To research the O’Shaughnessy and Smith series, Dunlap rode along with police officers, attended autopsies, and spent ten weeks studying the daily operations of the Berkeley Police Department.

  Dunlap concluded the Smith series with Cop Out (1997). In 2006 she published A Single Eye, her first mystery featuring Darcy Lott, a Zen Buddhist stuntwoman. Her most recent novel is No Footprints (2012), the fifth in the Darcy Lott series.

  In addition to writing, Dunlap has taught yoga and worked for a private investigator on death penalty defense cases and as a paralegal. In 1986, she helped found Sisters in Crime, an organization that supports women in the field of mystery writing. She lives and writes near San Francisco.

  Dunlap and her father at the beach, probably Coney Island. ”“My happiest vacations were at the beach,” says Dunlap, “here, at the Jersey shore, at Jones Beach, and two glorious winter weeks in Florida.”

  Dunlap’s grammar school graduation from Stewart School on Long Island, New York.

  In 1968, Dunlap arrived in San Francisco; this photo was taken by her husband-to-be atop one of the city’s many hills. Dunlap recalls, “It’s winter; I’m wearing a T-shirt; I’m ecstatic!”

  Dunlap’s dog Seumas at eight weeks old. “We’d had him two weeks and he was already in charge, happily biting my hand (see my grimace),” she says. “He lived for sixteen good, well-tended years.”

  Dunlap started practicing yoga in 1969 and received her instructor certification in 1981, after a three-week intensive course in India with B. K. S. Iyengar. Here she demonstrates the uttanasa pose (the basic standing forward bend) for her students.

  Seumas and Dunlap in 1988: “He was an old guy by this time, who had better things to do than be a photo prop. I think his expression says it all.”

  Dunlap relished West Coast life. “This is what someone who grew up in the snow of the East Coast dreams of . . . the California life!”

  For her fiftieth birthday, Dunlap and a group of close writer friends went to Santa Cruz for the weekend. Seated above from left to right: Marilyn Wallace, Marcia Muller, Dunlap, and Shelley Singer. Seated on the floor: Judith Gruber (pen name Gillian Roberts), Linda Grant, and Lia Matera.

  The Sisters-in-Crime presidents and former presidents—known as the Goddesses—always gather for a picture at conventions. One year, Dunlap had to miss the gathering. Her friends, knowing how much she wanted to be there, photoshopped her into the image.

  Dunlap’s last typewriter, before she happily switched to writing on a computer. “Plotting is one of the aspects of writing I really like—everything’s new, all gates open, all roads wide,” she says. “But it involves a great deal of data with connections that are not always linear. On paper or white board or with notes taped on corkboard—I tried them all—it was cumbersome. Using the computer was magic.”

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2004 by Susan Dunlap

  Cover design by Morgan Alan

  978-1-4804-3073-0

  This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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